dower

dower, in common law, the life interest of a widow of a percentage (typically one-third) of the legal estates in real property owned by her husband at any time during the marriage.

Originally there were varieties of dower (not to be confused with dowry) such as dower ad ostium ecclesiae ("at the church door") and dower ex assensu patris (by the heir with his father’s consent), where immediately before the marriage the wife was endowed of specified lands. Sometimes land held in knight service was exonerated from dower by the widow’s taking dower de la pluis beale ("of the most fair") of her husband’s socage land. By the 16th century these forms were of little importance compared with dower at common law, or subject to local customs under which dower might extend to a quarter, a half, or even the whole of the land. Except where the wife had been endowed of specific lands, she was entitled to have her land assigned “by metes and bounds” by the heir within her quarantine—that is, the 40 days during which the Magna Carta (1215) permitted her to remain in her husband’s house after his death.

The right to dower could be barred by the wife before marriage accepting a jointure (a life estate in specified lands) in lieu of dower, or by the complicated uses to bar dower invented in the 18th century. By the Dower Act (1833), dower in England was restricted to realty still owned by the husband at his death and not devised by his will. It could also be barred by a declaration in his will or by deed. As a small measure of compensation to widows, the act extended dower to equitable interests. The Administration of Estates Act (1925) abolished dower in the United Kingdom, but it continued to be observed in a number of common-law jurisdictions, often in a modified form. The modern tendency, however, is either to abolish it or to replace it with other, less arbitrary means of providing for widows.